


The Nocturnal Brain

by ScribeShan



Category: Scorpion (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, Missing Scene, Post 3x22, not smut, of sorts, post ep
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-10-25 05:31:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10757712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScribeShan/pseuds/ScribeShan
Summary: "Maybe you had a....sexy dream? It's perfectly normal for adults. Happy has them about me all the time.""Gross."A fun, mostly fluffy little exploration of the sexy Toby dreams Happy supposedly doesn't have.





	1. No Squealing, Remember That It’s All In Your Head

**Author's Note:**

> So this is just fun, and maybe a little melancholy in places, and not smut, but...you know what, I don't know what the hell this is. It's set at approximately 10 shortish chapters right now, and starts in S1 and expands out beyond where canon currently is. Hopefully this is a fun way to ring out the season and ring in hiatus.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't talk. Just don't ruin it.
> 
> This chapter is set immediately after 1x18 — their first kiss. Title is a lyric from “Clint Eastwood” by Gorillaz, the song that was playing in that scene.

She strode out the door, got in her truck, drove straight home. She didn’t feel nervous. She didn’t feel dread. Two stoplights from her apartment she found the corners of her mouth turning up she imagined his reaction after her exit. 

She nodded to herself as she climbed into bed. That had definitely been the right thing to do. No romance. No strings. She was a woman with needs, and she unapologetically sought to meet that need. And now it was done. The doc was a big boy. And brilliant Harvard-trained behaviorist, as he was always reminding her. He’d get it. Hell, she thought as her head sunk into her pillow, he might even be into it. It seemed like a New England academic to reject the notion of emotional intimacy as a prerequisite to acting on physical desire. And that’s all this was, really, she thought as she raised her hand to her mouth and let her fingers brush lightly across lips, still tingling at the memory of his. Physical desire. It was biology. And the fact that he didn’t wear that stupid hat today and his hair was all curly and just…nevermind. It was fun, she told herself as her eyelids began to droop. Hell, it was empowering.

As soon as she slipped into REM sleep, she was reliving those last moments at the garage. 

_“Doc, come here a second?”_

_“What’s up?” Harvard-trained behaviorist, her ass. He didn’t see that kiss coming for a second._

_That kiss that proved his lips were as soft as they looked, and that his scruff could tickle her chin. That’s an actual experiment-confirmed fact now. When she kisses Toby, his scruff tickles her chin. Fact #2: When she kisses Toby, he tries to thank her._

_“Just…don’t talk. Don’t ruin it.”_

_And for once, miraculously, he doesn’t talk. But she doesn’t walk away this time. Doesn’t even let go of his jacket lapels. When she pulls him to her a second time, he’s anything but frozen with shock. He kisses her hungrily, arms wrapping around her back tightly._

_At some point in time, she decides to peel his jacket off, just to have her hands free, and she pushes him against the chainlink fence forcefully, a silent command to stay. She snakes her hand into his hair and pulls his head down to hers, and her other hand rises of its own volition to rake through the soft curls on top of his head._

_When he sneaks his fingers under the hem of her shirt to trace above the waistline of her jeans, she’s almost relieved. He gets it. Must be the behaviorist thing. This is about the fulfillment of physical need. Empowerment. And who gives a damn if he also happens to be a weird kind of dorky-cute?_

_She fisted her hand in the front of his t-shirt and tugged it over his head._

_And for once in his life, he didn’t say a damn word. Just like she’d told him._

* * *

 

She stood at her workbench the next morning in a daze. What the hell had happened to her last night? She’d never really been the…steamy dream type. Then again, until last night she wasn’t the grabbing guys and kissing them type. She shook her head, took a long sip of coffee. It was just because he’d done that hot doctor thing yesterday. And he didn’t wear that stupid hat. That’s all. The subconscious does what it does. Doesn’t mean anything.

The door opened and as if the thought itself had conjured the damn thing up, the stupid hat floated in on top of Toby’s head. She averted her eyes quickly.

“Good morning!” he sang out. “How’s everybody? Boy, I slept great last night. I feel like a million bucks today.”

Happy dropped the socket wrench she was holding. She backed away from her workbench, eyes darting around the space. She grabbed the nearest thing she could put her hands on, a sheet of paper from the printer tray, and headed for the ramp, mind set on the roof.

“Hap?” Toby called after her, a practiced neutrality to his tone. “You alright there?”

“Yeah, I slept great,” she called over her shoulder, never breaking her stride. “Good. Fine.” And then she was gone.

“Well, now,” Toby grinned before raising his coffee cup to his lips. “That’s not what I asked you, is it? If I wasn't a Harvard-trained behaviorist I'd think you were hiding something. I  _am_ a Harvard-trained behaviorist, so I  _know_ you're hiding something, drive-by kisser. You're not getting off that easily.”

He jogged across the garage and followed her steps up the ramp.


	2. Am I More Than You Bargained For Yet?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Freezing to death in an Antarctic cave is easy. /Not/ freezing to death, that's hard.
> 
> Post-ep/missing scene for 2x13. Chapter title is a lyric from “Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down” by Fallout Boy, which was featured in the episode.

Freezing to death in an Antarctic cave is easy. Well, once you get over the hump, anyway. The fall in sucks, and the shivering is worse. But eventually, the mind starts to wander, the body starts to go numb, and you’re whisked away to unconsciousness and eventual death on a song. It’s quiet. Soft, in its own way. Peaceful.

 _Not_ freezing to death is hard. It’s loud, filled with rotor wash and the shouts of strangers. Everything is sharp. Bright. Feeling returns to your body in the form of a bone-deep ache, seeping in like a sickness. There’s no music, no peace. Understanding of the sights and sounds around you is elusive, and eventually you come to believe you’ll be swallowed by the cacophony, and lost forever, a fear settling into the frozen corners of your brain telling you to _fight_. 

It’s that signal from her lizard brain that finally drives Happy to stir. She intends to thrash, to swing, to demand explanations, but expending every ounce of her energy only nets her a weak roll from her side to her back, and that causes the noise around her to ratchet up, and through the din she can make out admonitions not to move. She feels something settle over her face, but before she can protest, it brings warm air to her nose and mouth. It helps. It’s comforting. Familiar somehow. And it reminds her of something, sort of, if she could just bring it into focus…

“Happy.” It’s a croak. Barely respectable enough to be called a whisper. But she hears it amid the chaos because it’s close. Really close. She wills her eyes open, ponders the inside roof of the rescue chopper. “Hap.”

It takes her frozen brain a few seconds to process that the sound is coming from her left, then help her turn her head toward it.

Toby’s on his side next to her, all hollow eyes and oxygen mask and barely-there voice. “You have to stay still,” he forces on an exhale. “S’dangerous. Frozen…” his eyes close in slow-motion, at least she thinks her mind isn’t playing tricks on her, “crystals in the bloodstream…can cause…complications. Stay still.” He falls silent, breath fogging the inside of the mask.

Happy stares at him, trying to wrap her head around what she’s seeing. How had they both gotten lost in the storm?

“You…” and damn if she doesn’t sound even worse than he does, “look like hell.” Her eyes slide down his neck, gaze trailing over his collarbone to his chest hair. “And naked.”

He forces his eyes open again and she could swear she sees a twinkle behind the exhaustion. “Sorry,” he drawls. “Seriously. Only option.”

She’s being jostled then, sleeping bag moved and replaced with something dry, and warm, but it agitates her, and she struggles, until she feels cool fingers wrap loosely around her wrist.

“Hey,” he breathes, and when she opens her eyes again she realizes she’s been rolled onto her other side, inches from him. “S’ok. S’just a warm…they’re helping, Happy.”

She goes still, confused by the memory of being wrapped in his arms in the cave. _That_ had been much better. Quieter. Less painful. Nobody moving her, prodding her. She’d felt safe. And he was so close now. And she…could just…

“To hell with it,” she slurs, and lurches toward him, curling into his chest. He startles momentarily, before she feels two tiny spasms of his chest, because of course the bastard would laugh at her for this, but she doesn’t care right now. She isn’t sure where to put her hands, and to be honest, she isn’t sure where they end up, because she can’t feel them, but the thought is spirited away with his voice in her ear. “Now, stay still, please? S’important.”

She presses her temple to his chest. “Mmm hmm.”

He exhales, relaxes under her. Relaxes into her. It should be weird. Somewhere in her shell-shocked brain, she knows it should be weird. But it isn’t. And for once in her life, as the paramedics bundle them together in warm blankets, she just goes with it.

Later, at the field hospital, she feels more lucid, but oddly lonely on her own gurney, listening as the doctors rave about Toby’s brilliant thinking. “Almost anything is possible if the heart is kept warm,” the doctor had smiled. “If you’re going to get lost in a blizzard, getting lost with a doctor is the way to go.”

Toby, bundled up in the next bed, doesn’t bask in the praise like he normally would. He’s sleeping, exhausted by the whole affair, slow, rhythmic breaths amplified behind his oxygen mask. The doctor encourages her to do the same, but she finds herself watching him sleep from beneath heavy eyelids. She couldn’t believe what he’d done for her that day, what he’d almost…he’d insisted he wanted only her for months, that he’d do anything. Talk about putting your money where your mouth is.

* * *

_She leaned against the window frame in the ski chalet, watching the gentle snowfall. The chill reached through the glass, and she shivered, drew her blanket tighter around her shoulders._

_“Geez, Happy, didn’t you get enough of that in the South Pole?” Happy turned to see Toby throw another two logs on the fire, embers dancing into the air. “It’s freezing in here.”_

_“This place is drafty,” Happy said. “Poor craftsmanship.”_

_“Super,” Toby drawled, rolling his eyes. “The bed over there feels like ice.”_

_Happy turned, paced the distance between the window and fireplace. “Then we’ll just have to sleep in front of the fire.”_

_Toby quirked a corner of his mouth. “Only problem with that is I’m not exactly sleepy.”_

_She lets him lean down to her, gives as good as she gets when he starts nibbling lightly on her bottom lip, but after a moment she notices that his skin really is chilled. “You_ **_are_ ** _cold, Doc.”_

_“This I know,” he murmurs, sweeping a thumb across her jaw._

_“We’ve had cold before,” she grins, backing him closer to the fireplace. “Doc, what’s the procedure for care in the field when a patient is hypothermic?”_

_He cocks his head. “I’m not hypothermic.”_

_“Not yet, anyway. But I think we should take this…very…seriously.”_

_Toby swallows hard, his gaze dropping to her lips momentarily. “Field, um…” he clears his throat when his voice comes out throaty. “Field treatment includes a variety of techniques, based on, um…severity. There’s, um…high calorie foods and warm liquids.”_

_Happy wrinkles her nose. “Maybe later.”_

_Toby flashes the tiniest grin, looking adorably nervous. “You should, um, always remove any wet clothing from the patient before beginning rewarming.”_

_Happy smiles, feeling a bit like a tiger about to pounce. “Good start.” She snakes one arm out from under the blanket and tugs his t-shirt over his head. Toby wriggles his shoulders and head out of the shirt so quickly she wants to laugh, but bites the inside of her cheek to keep a straight face. “Hmm, this is concerning,” she pretends to muse, pulling one hand down his chest, his skin appearing golden in the flickering firelight. “Skin has a bluish tint; this might be a pretty severe case, Doc.”_

_Toby smiles, more confident this time, lays his hand over hers on his chest. “Most important thing is to keep the heart warm. We’d better commence active rewarming immediately.”_

_Happy nodded. “Most effective method is skin-to-skin contact. Here…I’ll demonstrate.” She drops the blanket._

_Toby looks like his knees are about to buckle when he sees that she’s_ **_not_ ** _bundled in a pair of warm pajamas beneath the blanket. “Geez, Happy, are you trying to kill me?!?”_

_“Doc, I’m trying to save your life, here,” Happy protests, pulling him close. His arms fold around her shoulders. “What’s next?”_

_“Um,” he draws the backs of his fingers down the side of her neck, across her collarbone. She can see the flush in his face, even in firelight. “It’s important to assess respiration and pulse.”_

_One corner of her mouth curls up, and she presses her lips to his chest over his heart. “Pulse seems OK to me,” she says against his skin. “But breathing is a little erratic.” She pushes herself onto her tiptoes, presses a kiss to the underside of his jaw. “Maybe we should lie down, here in front of the fire.”_

_Toby fuses his lips with hers, not pulling away until she moans. He lowers them both to their knees on the soft rug in front of the hearth. “I’ll always do what the doctor orders, Happy.”_

* * *

When they’d first climbed into the tent together, he’d kept his mouth shut as much as possible. He was _not_ going to be this close to cuddling Happy Quinn all night and ruin it shooting off his stupid mouth.

He’d been so thrilled when she wordlessly unzipped their separate single sleeping bags and began zipping them together that he’d literally bitten down on his tongue to keep himself silent.

“ _No_ hanky panky,” she’d bitten out as she slid into the sleeping bag, and he’d nodded, too afraid of the fragility of the situation to do anything else.

Now, they were spooned together in a sleeping bag again, but on the roof at the garage in the mild southern California climate. He kept his hands curled toward his chest, close to her but not touching her at all, and stared at the back of her head, tried to let her breathing lull him to sleep. He was still exhausted, if he was being honest about it, despite having slept most of the way back home, but he couldn’t stop his mind from spinning.

He’d thought, in that cave, that they were going to die. Had come to accept it as inevitable. It broke his heart that she wasn’t going to make it, but he took some comfort from the notion that even if they’d never gotten together in life, that they would die together. He would die with her in his arms.

He remembers bits and pieces from the rescue. Walter screaming at him. Happy _finally_ waking up, then panicking in the rescue chopper, and something else…something he can’t quite shake. He remembers her cuddling into him, voluntarily, burying her head in his chest. When they’d left the field hospital, he’d decided to write it off to disorientation and shock, but on the trip back, and downstairs earlier…they were back in good ol’ L.A. now, but she was still here, sleeping next to him, at her own insistence. Maybe they didn’t make it out of that blizzard completely unscathed. And maybe that was a good thing.

He was pulled from his thoughts when she shook the sleeping bag with a big shiver. “You OK?” he spoke for the first time since entering the tent.

“Hmm,” she sighed. 

“Happy? Are you cold?”

“Maybe we should lie down,” she mumbles.

“Happy, you’re dreaming. Wake up.” He leans up on one elbow to look over her shoulder. “You’re OK.”

“Oh, God, that’s nice,” she sighed.

Toby stifled a bark of laughter and laid back down.

“Oh, _Doc_ ,” she groaned.

Toby went completely still beside her. 

“Let’s warm you up…engineer’s orders,” she sighed. 

Toby eyebrows shot into his hairline. “Oh my God,” he whispered. What could he do? Wake her, and he ran the risk she’d remember the dream, know he’d heard, and be upset. Keep silent, and he became little more than a cheap voyeur. 

He closed his eyes, burrowed into the sleeping bag as if he was asleep, then gently nudged her in the back with his arm. And something he never anticipated happened.

Happy Quinn giggled. Legitimately giggled. “Doc…”

“Oh, God, you’re killing me,” Toby muttered.

Happy startled. Toby slammed his eyes shut. He did his best to keep his body relaxed as she rolled onto her back. “Doc? Did you say something?”

“Hmm?” he mumbled, feigning sleep.

Happy poked him in the arm. “Did you say something?”

Toby cracked one eye open, unable to tell if she was buying his act. “Don’t think so. Y’okay?”

“Yeah.” He closed his eyes, but she broke the silence again. “You?”

 _Oh, Happy, OK is not the word._ “Yep.”

He heard the sleeping bag rustle, and assumed she was turning over to go back to sleep. “Doc?”

By the time he opened his eyes she was already kissing him, one hand coming to rest on his jaw. He slid an arm around her waist as he returned the kiss, but she was the one who rolled them onto her back.

He pulled back, eventually, looking down at her. “OK, _that_ hanky panky was your doing.”

She gave him a warning glare. “I’m going back to sleep.”

 _Stupid mouth._ “‘Kay.” He rolled back onto his side, but she curled into his chest, just like the day before in the chopper. “Happy?” he said into her hair, certain she could feel his heart about to pound out of his chest.

“Don’t say it if it’s going to be stupid.”

He nodded, took a moment to run the whole sentence through his head again. “If I promise not to take anything, no matter how nervous I get, if I promise to set 17 alarms to make sure, would you…let me take you to dinner?”

She smiled, something inside of her going soft and gooey. _To hell with it._ “Yes.”

He squeezed her shoulders. “Okay,” he said, then pressed a kiss to her scalp. “Okay, maybe I will.”

Happy draped an arm over his side. “Don’t push it, dummy.” Turned out that doctor in the field hospital was right, and so was her dad. Almost anything is possible if the heart is kept warm.


	3. Then You Wouldn’t Have to Say That You Loved Me, ‘Cause I’d Already Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Missing scene/post-ep for 2x16, aka the Quintis is Canon Miracle Ep! Title is a lyric from “More Than Words”, which was very, *very* memorably featured in the episode. ;-) Additional lyrics are included in the story.

Happy settled behind her workbench with a sigh and set about the mundane task of reorganizing her nuts and bolts into the compartmentalized tray where she normally kept them. Her entire tool cart had been upended in that earthquake.

She looked up at the team as they puttered about the garage, setting things back to rights, one by one. This place really way a godawful mess, and not in the way it normally was.

Toby slumped against the front of his desk, one leg stretched in front of him with an icepack on his sore ankle. “Ah ha!” he unearthed one of his speakers from the debris on the floor. “OK, I’ve got to do this,” he set the speaker on top of the desk by his head, fished his phone from his pocket. “It’s been stuck in my head all night, and it won’t go away until I listen to it.”

The first gentle notes of “More than Words” wafted into the space and prompted a round of tired smiles from the group. 

_Saying ‘I love you’ is not the words I want to hear from you_

_It’s not that I want you not to say, but if you only knew_

_How easy it would be to show me how you feel…_

Happy raised her eyes to Toby’s. A tiny quirk of his lips, the briefest, casual laying of his hand over his heart, and he went back to sorting the mess in front of him. 

Happy’s eyes darted to check that the others hadn’t seen. She pressed her lips together to stifle her smile, wondered at the warm sensation in her chest. She propped her chin in her hand and continued sorting the parts in front of her with the other. The room was quiet — they were all too tired to make lively conversation, and before long, Happy’s eyelids grew heavy under the weight of the day’s events and soft notes of the ballad on Toby’s speakers.

_His hands moved over her skin, softly kneading the knots and loosening her taut muscles._

_“You are stiff as a board,” Toby murmured in her ear. “I could build something with you, Buttercup.”_

_“You could build nothing with me,” she mumbled. “Oh, God, that’s it,” she sighed as her right shoulder began to relax. “Right there.”_

_“Yeah?” Toby pulled her tightly against him, pressing his chest to her back. “Right where?” He replaced his fingers with his lips. “Right here?” he whispered against her skin._

_“Ohhh,” she sighed. “Don’t stop.”_

_Toby pressed a kiss behind her ear. “Happy, I would never do that to you.”_

_“Mmmm,” Happy groaned contentedly. “I take back what I said about you not being good with your hands, Do—”_ She jolted awake when her forehead exploded in pain. “Ow!!!”

* * *

Toby made quick work of sorting the pile in front of him, mind being pulled along lazily with the lyrics. He shook his head as he flipped through one of his psych journals. For all his genius, he was so cliché. When you’re in love, all the songs on the radio really _do_ feel like they’re about you.

“You could build nothing with me,” Happy slurred. Toby looked up to see her dozing lightly, chin in her hand. Cabe looked, too, exchanged a smile with Toby. 

“We had a big afternoon,” he whispered.

“Oh, God, that’s it,” Happy sighed dreamily. “Right there.”

Toby’s eyes went wide. “Oh, God.”

“I’m out,” Cabe said, made a beeline for the kitchen. 

“Ohhh. Don’t stop.”

Toby’s eyes bugged out of his head. He cleared his throat.

“No,” Paige admonished. “She’s exhausted. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with a woman who has a healthy libido…doctor,” she winked. “Learn to live with it. Don’t wake her.”

Toby shook his head. “I’m not sure that’s the best—”

“Mmmm,” Happy purred. “I take back what I said about you not being good with your hands, Do—”

In a flash, Toby grabbed a hexnut from the floor by his knee and flung it at Happy’s forehead. Her chin slipped from her hand, nearly hitting the workbench, but she stopped talking, thank everything holy. She blinked dazedly, pressed her palm to the sting on her forehead as Toby got to his feet. “Ow!!!”

“Well, don’t stop having your steamy dream on our account, Happy,” he ribbed, begging her with his eyes to forgive him. 

Paige swatted him in the shoulder. “Toby!”

“Seriously, who’s the lucky dream lover?” Toby said, and draped an arm around Sly’s shoulders, motioning between them, “Any guy we know? Oooh!” he draped his other arm around Paige. “Any _gal_ we know?” He waggled his eyebrows, but drilled into her with his gaze. Paige shrugged off his arm and lightly elbowed him in the ribs.

Happy flashed hot, a hurt-fueled rage sweeping across her face, but she looked around at the expectant faces others, down at the hex nut that had bounced off her forehead. “I…” she picked up the hexnut, her face contorting with confusion. “I was dreaming?”

“Out loud,” Sylvester supplied uncomfortably.

Toby stepped closer to the workbench, so the others couldn’t see his face. “It was just about to get good, too,” he said with a forced joviality, but his face was one giant wince, a silent plea to _please understand_. He saw the moment it clicked with her why he’d done what he’d done and breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, don’t stop on our account, Hap.”

“Jerk,” she whipped the hex nut at him and he caught it against his chest. She stalked off, and he hoped she was just putting on a good show for the others.

He opened his palm and looked at the hex nut. “Hmm,” he flipped it deftly, caught it on the end of his finger. “Note to future self.” 

* * *

He’d left the garage barely 10 minutes after her, and was disappointed not to see her car in front of his building. He dialed her phone as he pulled his mail from his mailbox. 

“Hello?”

“Well, you’re taking my calls, that’s a start.”

“More than you think you deserve?”

“Can I start groveling now?” He shoved his mail into his messenger bag, fumbled with his keys.

“You can try.”

“Happy, you drifted off, and you were talking in your sleep, and it was getting pretty…vivid, and on top of that, you were about to blow our cover. We agreed we wanted to keep this between us for now. Right?”

“And you didn’t think saying ‘Happy, wake up’ was a more valid option than whipping a hex nut at me?”

Toby winced as he slid the key in the door. “I regret that sincerely. I panicked. Can I come over?”

“No.”

Toby deflated, shifted his weight uncomfortably on his bad ankle as he opened the door. “OK,” he sighed. “Can I call you in the morning?”

“Well, you could,” Happy came into the living room wearing his robe. “But that seems inefficient considering I’ll be right next to you.”

Toby’s arm went limp by his side. “Gee, you’re swell.” His eyes traveled her frame, and she tightened the sash to his robe. 

“Oh, I needed a shower, and then I just wanted to wear something comfortable. This looked pretty comfortable.” She smoothed the front of the robe, looked up at him. “Problem?”

“Hell, no. Mi apartamento es su apartamento.”

Happy dropped her phone in one of the robe’s pockets. “After what we’ve done the past few weeks, I think you’re safe to use the familiar _tu_.”

“What is this, like, nerd sexy talk?”

“Don’t push it, dummy.” She pulled him close by his jacket. “Ugh, you could use a shower too.”

“You charmer.”

“You were underground all afternoon in close proximity to a gas leak.” She pushed him toward the bathroom. “Go. I’ll open a bottle of wine.”

Toby’s face split into a grin. “I will say it again. Gee, you’re swell.”

* * *

Happy flopped onto her back next to Toby, heaving a contented sigh.

“Wait a minute, where ya goin’?” Toby rolled on his side, began pressing gentle kisses to her shoulder.

“Tired,” she mumbled. “Long day.”

“Mmm,” Toby replied, kissed his way up the side of her face. “Well, you just exerted yourself plenty.”

Happy suppressed a smile. “You’re such a geek.” She went still, stared at the ceiling. “Are you sure he didn’t know I was here?”

“Are you serious?” Toby propped himself up on his elbow. “Happy, I could have said, ‘Walter, come back later, I’m gettin’ lucky’ and he _still_ wouldn’t have guessed it was you. He also wouldn’t have understood that ‘gettin’ lucky’ was a metaphor.”

“Hope not,” she said softly. “He’ll be pissed.”

“He’ll get over it,” Toby whispered against her skin. “We’re happy. But for now, we’ll keep it between us. The intrigue makes it even hotter.”

She rolled her eyes. “Dork.”

Toby pressed his lips to her forehead. “Sorry about the hex nut.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Oh, come on! I’m trying here! And I did save our bacon.”

“Yeah, that…would _not_ have been good.”

“We’ve got to do something about this somniloquy of yours,” Toby said, pressing his lips to the spot on her forehead again, “before it gets us in hot water.”

“I guess I was just tired,” Happy yawned. “I don’t normally do that.”

Toby buried his head in the crook of her neck, shaking with laughter. “Oh, sweet pea, you could not _be_ more wrong.”

“What?”

“Happy!” Toby fairly shouted. “You talk in your sleep!”

“I. Do. Not.”

“ _All_ the time,” he pressed a kiss beneath her ear. “And it’s kind of adorable.”

“Wh…” Happy breathed out, shook her head. “What the hell do I talk about?”

“Well, I’ve only been witness for the past couple weeks, but usually you talk to me.”

“Seriously?” her eyebrows knit together. “What do I say?”

“Sexy things,” he waggled his eyebrows, and she smacked him in the shoulder. “Judging from the dialogue, you have done _unspeakable_ things to Dream Toby.”

She socked him in the bicep, harder than necessary to make her point. “You’re such a jerk,” she muttered, turning on her side, away from him. “I’m going to sleep.”

“Me too,” Toby yawned. He brushed her hair aside, pressed a tiny kiss to the back of her neck. “Good night, Happy.”

Since her back was to him, she allowed herself the luxury of a small smile. “Night, Doc.”

He thought he was dreaming when the soft strains of “More Than Words” floated to him. When he heard the volume decrease to a barely audible level, he forced his eyes open.

“This doesn’t look like sleeping,” he said, pulling his elbow under him again.

“Can’t sleep yet,” Happy said, watching the music video on her phone.

“That blue light is only gonna keep your brain active, you know,” he propped his chin on her shoulder.

She rolled on her back, placed the phone face down on her stomach. “This song is…it’s kind of pretty.”

“Yeah, it is. I’ve loved it since I first heard it.”

“I didn’t know it before tonight. It was a little before my time.”

“I forget what a cradle-robber I am,” he grinned. He shifted, draped on arm across her, ran the fingers of the other hand through her hair. “I heard it in high school. And I thought, ‘Man…if that’s what love is, I can’t wait to feel that way.’”

“How the hell old were you when you started high school?”

Toby pursed his lips. “Ten.”

Happy snorted.

“It doesn’t matter. I had never known love like that,” Toby ribbed her, then nodded. “I was right. It was worth the wait.”

Happy bit her bottom lip. “Good.”

Toby smiled, pressed a tiny kiss to her lips. She threaded her fingers through his. 

“Can I _please_ say it now?”

“No.”

“Come on. I’ve done as you asked. I haven’t said it, not once.”

“I’m not ready for that, Doc.”

“You already know I feel it!” Toby whined. “I said it a year ago.”

“Toby…”

“You don’t have to say it back. You totally don’t have to say it back. That’s OK. But I want to say it.”

“I…need you to wait,” Happy said. “Even though we both know you…I need you to wait a little longer.”

Toby shrugged. “OK.” He kissed her cheek, settled his head on the pillow, closed his eyes.

“I don’t know when I’m going to be able to say it back,” Happy said.

Toby opened his eyes. “I know. It’s OK.”

“I mean, I don’t want you to think I don’t want to, I just…”

Toby smiled. “You try so hard to make everyone thing you’re such an ass. You’re tenderhearted as hell.”

“Shut up.”

“Hey, it’s like your new favorite song says,” Toby nodded down at her phone. “I don’t need the words, Happy. You show me other ways. Whether you tell me or not, I already know.”

Happy nodded, swallowed hard. “Then you can say it…when you want to.”

Toby grinned ear-to-ear. “I love you, Happy.”

She curled her lips up, squeezed his hand, blinked once. “OK.”

He nodded, stifled a laugh. “OK. Good night.”

“Night,” she said, and he closed his eyes. “Doc?”

“Hmm?”

“I’ve never been happier either.”

His eyes shot open to see Happy looking at him nervously. “OK?” she asked.

He swept his thumb across the back of her hand. “ _So_ OK, Hap.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An update to The Curtis Method is up next, but this was a quick hit and a chance to ease myself back into writing after a whole lotta life happening. :)
> 
> Feedback feeds the writer and makes her heart grow three sizes. ;-p


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